The state of SaaS 2023: Observations from the front line

In 2013 your top engineering talent wasn’t having their head turned every two minutes on LinkedIn, there were a handful of competitors to benchmark against and those sweet recurring revenue opportunities were plentiful – good times. 

A decade on and things have changed. 

Faster and more accessible internet has helped a burgeoning number of upstarts enter increasingly packed software categories.

Recent research from G2 provided the data to back up this statement. The site is currently home to:

– 345 email marketing service providers
– 358 marketing automation providers
– And a whopping 824 CRM providers

You don’t have to be a mathematician to work out that… more competitors + rising CAC (customer acquisition cost) + NPD (new product development) pressure = a world of pain….so what to do? 🤔

More competition. Less features.

Learning how to use a new piece of software isn’t necessarily at the top of people’s ‘things I love to do’ list. 

This can be especially true for business owners who often do their admin and scope out business development opportunities at the end of a busy day providing the product or service their customers expect. 

To stand out from your competitors in 2023 you need to make your software simple and accessible. Ask yourself…

#1 Do we need 101 features or does our data show only a fraction are ever used by the majority?

#2 Is having 72 onboarding calls necessary or would a single call and selection of well crafted online resources make things easier all round?

#3 Can your product team swap places with your support team for the day and get new product development  direction from those actually using your software? 

Can anyone pick up your software and start using it with no training?

Shiny new things.

Customers are important , but how do your marketing and customer success teams split their time between new and existing customers?

Shiny new things look great, but they’re expensive.

You’ve paid for existing customers and they’re already onboard. Give them the love they need and they’re less likely to leave and more likely to help you fly.

NPD cheat code

It can be difficult to develop new products without increasing ARPU (average revenue per users) and difficult to increase ARPU without developing new products. We hear you!

A white labelled solution can cut through the NPD <> ARPU conundrum and give your product roadmap the excitement injection it needs to keep existing customers and new prospects interested.

But you’ve got questions to answer and due diligence to complete. Does the white label offering fit with your existing product, does the underlying tech integrate with your stack and will this new product appeal to your customer base?

We’re on a mission for tech democracy for small businesses – are you?